Sewon America, a major supplier for the Kia Motors plant in West Point, will go on a hiring spree next week.

Applications will be accepted from 8 a.m. to 9 p.m. Feb. 9, 10 and 11 on the old campus of West Georgia Technical College at 303 Fort Drive, Building A, rooms C-3 and C-4.

Sewon, the technical school and Georgia’s Quick Start program signed a training agreement Monday at the school’s Callaway Conference Center.

The company, which will manufacture stamped chassis and body components, as well as decorative trim pieces, will start production later this year with about 400 employees at a $170 million, 420,000-square-foot plant scheduled for completion in April on 65 acres in the Callaway South Industrial Park near La-Grange Callaway Airport.

“They’ll be in a gradual hiring ramp-up to get to 600 employees in about 2012,” said Quick Start project manager Sean McMillan.

The plant could have 700 employees if Kia reaches full production of 300,000 vehicles per year, said LaGrange Development Authority Chairman Diethard Lindner.

Sewon, based in Daegu, Korea, has been a Kia supplier for more than 20 years.

At Monday’s training agreement signing, Sewon America President Do Hyun Kim expressed thanks to Lindner, McMillan, West Georgia Tech President Perrin Alford, Troup County Commission Chairman Ricky Wolfe, Chamber of Commerce board Chairman Carol Todd and Jackie Rohosky, head of the Quick Start program.

“For the entry into the U.S. market, we had researched over one year for our best investment and best plant site,” Kim said. “And we finally settled our decision here in LaGrange. … We were impressed about their (Quick Start’s) know-how, training program and distinguished quality of their methods, which absolutely stands out from other states’ training programs.”

Sewon has already hired 20 employees who left Dec. 14 for three months of intensive training in South Korea.

The state Department of Labor will take over the hiring after Feb. 11. For more information, call the Labor Department’s career center at (706) 845-4000.

Meanwhile, the LaGrange Development Authority will host a reception for Kim and the Sewon staff from 5 to 7 p.m. Feb. 19 at the LaGrange-Troup County Chamber of commerce on Bull Street.

At Monday’s development authority meeting, the board agreed to spend up to $10,000 to draw plans for a nature trail for Sewon employees that would meander through a poplar grove on about 11 acres adjacent to the plant. The company has a similar park at its Korean facilities.

Also Monday, the development authority agreed to buy back a little less than 8 acres from Garden Nectars, whose plans for a water bottling plant fell through. The authority will pay $145,000, the same price it had charged for the land behind Yasafuku in the LaGrange Industrial Park.